Helvítis Fokking Fokk! Iceland reacts to the Panama Papers.

Submitted by Rei on Mon, 04/04/2016 - 8:05pm

If you haven't heard of the Panama Papers, you need to. Leaked from a Panamanian law firm, it's one of the largest leaks of all time, revealing the way some of the world's most controversial leaders hide their assets. Allies of Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Ayad Allawi of Iraq. Top Chinese officials. The son of the Malaysian prime minister. Children of Pakistan's PM Nawaz-Sharif. And....

... the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð?

(Credit: Þórður S. Júlíusson)

(Pronunciation: "SIH-mun-dur DAHV-eeth")

Before we go any further, I should correct a common misconception. You know those stories about Iceland being some sort of anticapitalist paradise that defaulted on its loans, said no to the IMF, nationalized its banks, preserved its welfare system, got a new constitution, put all the crooks in jail, and lived happily ever after? Yeah, it's all BS. More to the point our current government is the conservatives. That's right, the same parties that got us into our mess in 2008 got reelected a couple years ago. Hooray to short-term memories!

It's already been known that they've been robbing us blind. They fought a long battle with the EU over getting Iceland more of the mackerel quota... only to just give it to their friends, the wealthy fishing barons. They got Landsbankinn to sell off the company Borgun in a backroom no-bid deal for a tiny fraction of its value to... wait for it... friends and family of top government officials. They've taken silencing of the media under threats of lawsuits and backroom buyouts of media companies (followed by sacking of all critical journalists) to new levels. They smuggled machine guns into the country and lied about them being a gift when exposed. The sort of stuff they've been pulling could comprise a book. And their popularity has gone off a cliff. At the last poll, the prime minister's party was the choice of only 12% of the electorate.

And now this. Seriously, watch his "kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar" reaction when he discovered that he had been caught:

It's hard to take your eyes away. What happened? The Reykjavík Grapevine goes into detail, but the short of it is that before the crash, he and his wealthy wife used a secret offshore company ("Wintris") to purchase sizeable stakes in the three large Icelandic banks - banks that later became famous worldwide when they so spectacularly collapsed. This turned them into creditors squabbling over the assets of the banks against many other competing interests. Transparency laws when he was elected (on the grounds of supposedly fighting against the evil vulture creditors ) required him to disclose any stake in a shareholding company over 25% (he owned 50% and his wife the other 50%)... he did nothing for three months. Then, rather than disclose it, he sold his stake to his wife for $1 USD - which of course did not remove his conflict of interest either way. Then, as prime minister, he promoted and passed legislation that redirected $2B euros that would have gone to Iceland to instead go to the creditors. Aka, his wife and others ("others" also including other members of the governing coalition)

Yeah, ouch.

It was announced on Facebook that there was going to be a protest. The prime minister was dismissive. "It's not like everyone is going to show up."

("Remove from me political ends/consequences/funerals" on the statue of Jón Sigurðsson (Iceland's equivalent of George Washington) Also written on the statue: "Simmi, you're fired", with one letter added making it "Simmi, you're the dragon.". Credit: Agnar Kristján)

A vote of no confidence will be occurring soon, which would mean the collapse of the government, and likely lead to a Pirate government according to polls. But we can't get our hopes up too much. While the coalition isn't completely rushing to Simmi's aide, they're not running away from the sinking ship yet either. A coalition partner parliamentarian actually tried to claim that the protesters aren't actually protesting the prime minster, that people are just mad in general that money gets stored in "those kinds of islands". As for our prime minister, he's constantly defending himself, insists he's not going to resign, and is actively avoiding the press. When a Norwegian journalist showed up at his house to ask for an interview, he called the Special Forces. (Yes, you read that right... not the police, but the organization responsible for stopping terrorist attacks and the like)

Basically, so far Simmi's reaction has been his usual to people being angry with him:

(Credit: Nanna Árnadóttir)

Not if we have anything to say about it. People are not taking this lying down. And the government is playing with fire if they want to pretend that nothing happened.

... for converting from Icelandic figures to US figures is to multiply by 1000. The US has about 1000x the population, 1000x the economy, etc. Now, that's not entirely fair - it takes ~15 hours to drive a loop around our country instead of a week, for example, so it's easier to get from one side to the other. But still.... yeah, this protest was epic.

It means exactly what it sounds like. "Helvítis fokking fokk!" literally means "Damn fucking fuck!"; it was an iconic sign from the 2008 protest period that really summed up peoples' frustrations. Needless to say, it's been making a comeback.

But the growth of those protests scared Wall and other powers that be, so they were attacked, arrested, pepper sprayed, and abused.

The same anger that drives some into the Trump Tent also causes growing support for Bernie. And, is slowly dissolving The Inevitable One's campaign.

The dissent that is bubbling within her campaign exists because they see just how her campaign is floundering. And they don't know what to do about it. Bill doesn't help. Hillary won't listen to anyone but herself and to her very few top aides (Huma, Sydney, a couple of more) I heard a rumor (and cannot confirm it) that Hillary had allowed a video crew to film the inner workings of her campaign, so she could brag about how efficient and smart they were after her coronation. That has been cancelled or put on hold because the screams and verbal wars simply gave the wrong optics.

Given the popularity of Occupy, one wonders just how dense Hillary is to have ignored the unhappy majority that has substantive bones to pick about the economy and financial fraud that is so commonplace today. Internationally, in fact, given the Panama Papers.

I'd LOVE to see a crowd of about 650,000 or so people surround the Capitol chanting, for Ryan and McConnell to lead a parade of Republicans out of their respective holes in the big round cheese and leave town for good.

I hope two things for Iceland's next volcanic eruption. One, it doesn't disrupt life up there too much. Two, that you write essays about it here since TOP is dead to me. I'm a volcano nerd. I loved your Holuhraun diaries so much!

Resignation now, revolution at 5... a winning slogan! I must say, Iceland sounds a bit like Rhode Island in all this. I lived there, and it was a place small enough the mayor would show up at a birthday party, but the corruption was legendary. I just hope this uprising starts a world-wide tidal wave to clean house.

The prime minister just stormed out of a meeting with the president looking upset, jumped in a car without talking to anyone, and left. The president took a press conference. Here's what the result was:

"Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, prime minister, requested at a meeting with the president at noon today to dissolve parliament. The president said that he cannot take this request from the prime minister before he'd discussed it with the other coalition partner. ... Ólafur (the president) said that he plans to have a meeting with the president of the Independence Party after several hours. Afterwards there will be a meeting with the president of the Alþing (parliament)..."

A Reykjavík city councilman in the Independence (conservative) party who's served there for 14 years has resigned over his role in the scandal. Still no word on what's going to happen with the national government, though.

An expert says it's a very unusual and very political move on behalf of the president to refuse the prime minster's request to dissolve parliament. We'll have to see what comes out of this Independence (conservative) party meeting - the conservative party chair is heading back to Bessastaðir (the president's residence) as soon as the meeting is done, and reports are coming in that the meeting appears to be concluded.

like that here in the USA.
Apathy has infected America and therefore, the 1% carry on with business as usual.
Who will be revealed from the USA in the Panama Papers? You can bet that those who know they will be revealed are talking with their lawyers and preparing a BS response right now.
Since the media is in bed with the richy rich, there will be another bet you can take. They will report their masters are being attacked and it is all so unfair. Move along, nothing too see or hear.

"Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson has decided to resign as prime minister.

The news will be updated"

That's all that the article says.
My reaction: [i]"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"[/i] I literally cheered out loud at work! BUT! There's a question, [i]can[/i] he actually quit without party consent, or will they consent it? Will the coalition government actually fall? Stay tuned!

"Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson has decided to resign as prime minister. This was announced by Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, vice president of the Progress Party, who announced this in a live broadcast on RÚV just now.

According to Sigurðar Inga, Sigmundur Davíð will however continue as president of the Progress Party but step to the side as prime minister. He said that there is a full determination within the party to continue in the governing coalition with the Independence Party.

Sigurður Ingi said also that he shuold have discussed discussed it with Bjarni Benediktsson (Independence Party), the financial minister, about that they have full interest in continuing the coalition continue.

Bjarni is now meeting with the president at Bessastaðir and according to this it may be assumed that he will recommend to the president that the coalition of these parties in the government will continue. The news will be updated."

I didn't even know that such an arrangement would be legal. But there goes the last shred of credibility that King Ólafur (Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, president) ever had. The coalition would be broken if not for him defending the conservative coalition.

Interview with an Independence (conservative party) member (the coalition partner of PM Sigmundur Davíð's Progress Party):

Brynjar Níelsson, MP of the Independence Party, desires that the party continue on in the coalition with the Progress Party, whether Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson continues as prime minister or not. Brynjar said this before he walked into an Independence Party meeting which began for the third time today.

Brynjar, what did you feel about the conclusion that the president reached?

„It depends on whether you're speaking with a lawyer or a politician. As a lawyer I'm not fond of this situation because of the governance of the country but I think it was nonetheless reasonable because of how the situation was."

What's the situation?

„Now we're discussing it and will hopefully come to some kind of conclusion. I myself think that it's important that these parties continue.“

How can that happen?

„We now need to figure that out. It's not totally easy under the circumstances."

After these events this morning...

„Yes, that just complicates the issue“

Cam everyone who's in the government now as it stands today just continue forward in it?

„I'm not going to say but I think that there's a significant desire to do that if it's possible.“

Therefore that the prime minsiter can continue in the government?

„I'm not saying that it has to be like that. But I think it's important that these parties continue to work together, whether Sigmundur will continue or not."

Does a Vote of No Confidence require a simple majority of 50%+1 or does it require a supermajority of 3/5 or 2/3? Is there anything like American style voter suppression that your Prime Minister can use to hold on to his position?

I really don't know the details of the process, to be honest. As for voter suppression, we usually get 85-90% turnout in elections no matter what. But votes in rural areas count for more. Obviously they've resisted changing that.

The translation of this guys sign:
...is wrong. It reads "I provide political funeral services." (as in political career death). Thought I'd mention it because I met this guy yesterday and I think his way of protesting is very original and pretty funny as well.